How a small chamber team makes an outsized impact

Jodi Owczarski: Be a trailblazer. You can't continue to do what you've always done. You've got to continue to look for ways that your community, your members need you to show up. And it's going to be new things and it's going to be things that you've never done before and maybe no chamber has done before. Maybe no organization in your community has done before, but it's what your community needs. Be bold, take the step, go blaze a trail, and the impact that you're going to be able to create is going to be monumental.

Ted Wind: Hi, I'm Ted and I build software for chambers of commerce. For the past decade, chamber tools were all built the same way. One clunky system for every chamber. But if I've learned one thing, it's that no two chambers are alike. That's why on this show, we go beyond the ribbon cut with top chamber leaders to share the unique programs, processes, and what makes their chamber work, and to give you new ideas you can take back to your chamber. This is Beyond the Ribbon Cut.

Welcome back to Beyond the Ribbon Cut, the podcast for chamber leaders. I'm your host, Ted Wind from Diagonal for Chambers, and my guest today is Jodi Owczarski, president and CEO of the Michigan West Coast Chamber of Commerce. Jodi, thank you so much for joining us today.

Jodi Owczarski: Ted, it's a privilege. Thanks for asking.

Ted Wind: Of course. Of course. We're excited to have you on. So, let's get the scene set here. Tell us about the Michigan West Coast Chamber and the business community along that kind of Holland and Zeeland and the lakeshore.

Jodi Owczarski: Love that. So, we're the Michigan West Coast Chamber. We're the third coast for the US right along Lake Michigan. We come from a community that it has about 120,000 people in our service area. We have 1,226 members as of today. Each member counts, right? and we serve that team. We've grown recently, so now we're up to nine. Traditionally, though, we've been right around the seven employee mark. We have a good deal of manufacturing here. We also have retailers do a fair amount of hospitality and tourism in our community, although we're not the CVB. We're a straight chamber of commerce and agriculture is also big in our community.

Ted Wind: Love that. Love that. Sounds like a pretty solid mix. You're pulling pretty much from everywhere. We got the manufacturing, we got the ag, we got the small business. Sounds like those multi-chambers and those big chamber get togethers should be a pretty good time.

Jodi Owczarski: They are indeed.

Ted Wind: Awesome. So, your path into the chamber world a little interesting. You started, I believe you owned a small business and then worked with some nonprofits, did some HR work. Can you tell us the story kind of from starting that small business all the way to now being a chamber CEO?

Jodi Owczarski: You know, it's so funny, Ted, when I talk to other chamber leaders, too. None of us went to school and said, "I'm going to go to college, get a degree so I can be a chamber leader, right? Most of us had no idea that this is where we would end up." And so, it took personally a pretty route to get here. I'd worked in a large manufacturing. I'd been self-employed and nonprofit and global consulting, but what I found is that all of that adds to my ability to lead this organization and relate to our members.

I was actually in our leadership program and an ambassador at the time that the opening came up at the chamber to lead the sales team. And I remember showing the listing to my husband and he said, "Oh, yeah, that's an interesting thing." And I said, I was thinking I'd apply for it. And my super supportive husband truly who thinks I can do anything was like, "Well, why would you do that? That's not like the job for you."

And I convinced him otherwise and threw my hat in the ring and have just had an incredible ride since that was back in 2017. And so started on the sales side, had done a little bit of everything through the chamber until becoming the CEO in September 1 of 2022. So I just finished my fourth year.

Ted Wind: Wow. And was there a moment along the way when everything really clicked and you're like, "Wow, this is this is why I'm a chamber professional. This is why I got in this space."

Jodi Owczarski: The cool thing about this job is that moment happens nearly every day, right? It wasn't a one point in time. When I talk about the work that I do, it's the work that I get to do, not the work that I have to do because this is get to kind of work. And so every day there's some moment or moments that remind me like, "Wow, this is so cool that I get to have this kind of impact or be involved in these kinds of things." Because when we as chamber executives do our job well, the community flourishes, right? Our business members flourish. And it's not just that we made 10 more widgets today than we did the day before. That's cool stuff, right? When we do it really well and do trailblazing work, we can have generational impact on the work that we do. We're planting trees we will never sit under the shade of. So cool. So every day I look for those moments.

Ted Wind: I love that. And that's I mean one of the main reasons why we're so excited to have you on today in particular is because the level of impact that your chamber has been able to accomplish despite not having the massive 20 person staff is really really incredible. And at Diagonal something we see all the time as chambers saying we'd love to do more but we're only three people. We're a staff of two. It's just me, right? We need more staff if we want to accomplish more. As you mentioned, you're nine people now, but you are seven people for a long time, serving over 1,200 members. Last year, ACCE named you chamber of the year. Can you tell us how a small chamber team is able to make such a massive impact?

Jodi Owczarski: Thank you. I would say one of the things the best thing that we have done is that we follow the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS. It's a business plan that allows you to have great clarity in the work that you're doing. And for us, man, success breeds success, right? And so when you have good things happening, more opportunity comes your way. And sometimes those are great opportunities, but they're not always meant for us. And having clarity and the clarity that we get from the discipline of doing EOS helps really clarify our yeses and our nos.

So that's the number one thing is really knowing what belongs to us, what aligns with our mission and what we should be doing and what we need to say no to.

The second thing is that we have great clarity on who is accountable to doing what. And so we don't operate from an org chart. We operate from an accountability chart. And so we very clearly distinguish what work needs to be done and who's ultimately accountable for that work. That allows us to be incredibly efficient and effective in the work that we're doing as well. And so when we've got the right people in the right seats doing the work that fully aligns with our mission, it's remarkable how much we're able to accomplish with a small team.

Ted Wind: I love that. And that EOS system is also something longtime listeners of the show will know. We had Bob Thomas on and he gave a wonderful talk on kind of the intricacies of EOS and why that is so important for chambers. So it's really really incredible to hear that you guys are utilizing that system. Well, now one of the parts that you alluded to there knowing what to say no to especially when you have a small staff that is so so important with your small group of staff. what's on the West Coast Chambers kind of no list and how do you keep the team from, you know, running on running on fumes there?

Jodi Owczarski: Yeah. No, that's that is incredibly important. The health of our team holistically has to be one of our top priorities. Having a healthy culture, I would put our culture up against anybody. So part of that then includes the ability for our team to push back and to say, "Man, I'm not so sure about this." whether it's not aligned or if it's too much, our team has the the right, the ability, the expectation that they're going to step forward and say, I have concern about this and let's talk about it. And we do and sometimes that means we push pause and sometimes that means, you know, we pivot or we stop it all together. So having that piece is super super important.

Ted Wind: Could you give us a real example of that? maybe a program or tradition or something that you guys decided, no, this doesn't make sense for us anymore based on staff constraints.

Jodi Owczarski: Yep. Yep. Staff constraints and or data, right? So, we drive with data. We use that to make our decisions all of the time. And so, sometimes you have to kill a sacred cow.

And so for us, we've got some programs that we've done forever and that just aren't hitting the same way as they used to. It takes a lot of staff time and demands. And we've realized that we just need to scale that back and we'll still do a couple of year, but we're not going to do one every single month. We see more upside potential for that. But we've done that. We've killed other sacred cows where we've stopped doing programs altogether.

But you can't be afraid to pivot and change. My team will tell you that I'm anti-SALY. Same as last year. We can't just keep doing things because we've always done them. What our chamber members need and what our community needs is very different today than it was pre-COVID and and further back, right? And so we can't keep doing what we've always done because their needs are completely different.

Ted Wind: 100%. And I think that being able to take that step back and look and say, "All right, yeah, maybe our chamber has been doing this event for 20 years, but we have to adapt." Chambers, as chambers, we have to make sure we're constantly adapting and changing, especially if it's something that's not resonating with members anymore.

Jodi Owczarski: That's right. And Ted, can I pause and just say the the chambers that are operating with one employee or two or three, man? Props to you for doing so much hard work with such a small team. Don't let that convince you though that you can't do things like operate under EOS.

I would suggest that it's even more critical for small teams to be able to do that than large teams because you have to have ultimate clarity. You don't have time to waste, right? You don't have the fluff around you to help absorb those things that really you shouldn't be doing, but you do anyway. You just don't have that extra bandwidth. And so, take the chance to look at something like EOS. It doesn't have to be EOS, but find what works for you to help give you that clarity and that discipline so that however big your team is, 1 2 3 7 nine, that you can maximize the impact that that team can make.

Ted Wind: 100%. Really great advice there. And as part of that maximizing the effort and the work that a small team can do, one of the things that I think is really incredible about your chamber is your ambassador program and how you've been able to grow and kind of leverage that to make a small team appear and have more resources than it otherwise would have. Could you walk us through a little bit about that ambassador program?

Jodi Owczarski: Yeah. So, I mentioned at the beginning of this broadcast that I was an ambassador when I was hired into the chamber and at that point somebody approached me and said, "Hey, you should be an ambassador." And I said, "Okay." And they said, "What do I need to do? What's that look like?" And they said, "Well, no, now you are an ambassador, right?" That was the extent of it. It was like, "If you want to be and I can just say yes to that."

And so, our ambassador team was big. There was probably close to a hundred people on our ambassador team at that time. It was very social in nature and I'm gonna even go as so far as to say is a little bit cliquey, maybe a little mean girl in there. And so what looked on paper like it should have been a big impactful piece for the chamber was not at all.

Today we have 39 ambassadors and those ambassadors are vetted. They apply. they understand what they're signing on for. We want it to be mutually beneficial and so we're very clear on what our expectations are from them to be able to extend the impact of our team. But in return, we also want this to be beneficial for them and their business, right? And so we are clear about how we want to show up for them at the same time having them lean into especially our member engagement piece. We don't want our members to only hear from us when it's time for them to renew their membership and it's like, "Hey, good to see you again. Here's your invoice. Please pay."

We have a very carefully defined process of member engagement. We call it a journey so that they're going to hear from us on a particular rhythm all year long. And some of that's done by chamber staff and some of that's done by ambassadors. Some of it's done by email or automation. But we try to vary that so that our members don't feel like, oh, they pushed this button today, right? But we can't hit 1,226 members on a regular basis in a meaningful way with just nine people. But when we have 48 people doing it, we can

Ted Wind: 100%. Yeah. And that also ties into a common question, right? Whether it's maybe board members that are becoming a little cliquey or as you said like the ambassador program that becomes a little cliquey. Anytime you're shrinking the volunteer base of your chamber that always means you're telling loyal people they're out in a sense, right? How did you handle those conversations with those ambassadors without burning bridges there?

Jodi Owczarski: That is a really important question. Change management is a big deal, right? And so we had to navigate that very very carefully to understand where those potholes might be on that road.

And so we gave everyone that was currently an ambassador the opportunity to apply again and if they applied that they would be accepted in year 1, but with clear expectations on how things were going to change. Some of those people self- selected and said, "No, you know what? this is a good time for me to step away. Others self- selected after year, the transition year, and said, "Whoa, this is more work than what I was looking for. I think I'll step away."

Others required us to have a more direct conversation to say, "Man, we are so grateful for the years of service that you've provided and feel like this might be a natural transition time to let some new energy come in." And if they're willing to do that, we'll we made those transitions. There was a couple people that hung on longer than they needed to and should and we allowed that to happen one extra year in that handful of cases because we didn't want a burn bridge and we thought we could mitigate that risk and impact.

But then eventually the group got down to this core group of people who were doing it for the right reasons, willing to lean in and really be an extension of our team. And they wear that proudly now. They know the impact that they're making.

Ted Wind: Yeah, that's so important. And that like they are the name is in there, right? They are ambassadors for the chamber, right? They should be proud. It's so important whenever you give that title to someone that they're in it for the right reason.

Jodi Owczarski: That's right. They are an extension, right? And I feel like if they're not a person that you would ever consider hiring on your team, then maybe they're not someone that you should let them wear that label because essentially they're on your team. They're just an unpaid member of your team.

Ted Wind: I love that. So I think that ambassador program is one half of the system that allows you guys to function so efficiently and make so much impact with a small team. Another side of it that I found really interesting when we were researching your chamber was around the machinery you use to really know your members. You rate every member A, B, C or D and I believe you posted somewhere around like a 90% plus retention rate last year. Can you explain this ranking system and maybe share a little bit about how other chambers can apply this?

Jodi Owczarski: Absolutely. This has been a game-changer for us. So I talked a little bit about the fact that we have these journeys. Part of EOS is that you document process. We call them journeys for us. And so we've got a number of journeys including that a member journey. We have a prospecting journey. We have a new member journey. What it looks like in their first year and then that forever loop once they're fully engaged in the chamber.

Our team is super competitive and so they have a really hard time letting a member go and so we were finding that we were spending a lot of time chasing members that were overdue on their renewal. And so we needed to help give them permission to know when it's all right to just accept somebody's drop as a drop. And so part of that was just prioritizing their time both in prospecting and in renewing by looking at what's our ideal chamber member.

For us, it's a few things. It's a company that has a growth mindset. They're located right here in the Holland-Zeeland area and they're willing to be engaged in a way that's meaningful for them. And so because there's that reciprocal side, right, that it can't just be what are they going to get from us? There's a two-way street.

And as we look at them, we rate them ABC. You know, they got all of those things. They're going to be an A. We're going to spend more time prospecting those. We're going to spend more time trying to retain those members. We're going to give anybody the same good experience.

But when we can prioritize our team's time, I can guarantee you across the board, people spend the most time dealing with C members. It's the people who give you all the challenges, demand all the time that they need, all the things and they're really not well aligned with your organization and it being an ideal chamber member. This just helps provide that clarity. And so letting those C members maybe drop when they choose not to renew and not chase them so hard allows us to spend our time more meaningfully.

So the last two years we've been at 94% retention. So we'll see where we end up this year. We still have the potential to get to 93 this year. So it's worked for us, right? You put the systems in place. We understand who our ideal members are. We all have members who join and at the point they join you go, "Okay, they're not going to renew a year from now. We'll take their money. We'll give them as good experience as we can, but you can see them coming. We'll invest differently there."

Ted Wind: I love that. I mean that prioritization is so important. Could you share a little bit more about what earns a member an A in that category? Is it I mean mostly just dues size or is there some more that plays into that?

Jodi Owczarski: No, it's literally the the alignment with what we say are those ideal members. So it's the location. It's the growth mindset willing to invest of themselves in the chamber membership in the way that's meaningful. It's just we've defined that upfront to look at who's your ideal member, right? What makes them a great member? And you start to see those consistencies of what that is for your organization and then look for more people that align in that same way. So dues size, the majority of our 85% of our members are small businesses, right? And so yeah, we can't go all on dues size

Ted Wind: 100%. And I think a lot of chambers sometimes maybe fall into that trap of just kind of putting the blinders on and just focusing on those highest tier dues folks when there's other metrics here like you just explained where

Jodi Owczarski: That's right. alignment with the chamber is just so so so important and better use of your time especially as a small team.

Ted Wind: Exactly. Now, on the other side of the coin, are there any early warning signals that tell you a member is at risk before kind of that renewal invoice goes out and they all fall into, you know, that classic cycle, right? Of the follow-up and the follow-up and the followup.

Jodi Owczarski: Absolutely. And we mark people that way often, right? when you see whether they're not engaged or they're frustrated or you know that they're having some challenges, we love to get ahead of that. Anytime we can identify those at risk behaviors ahead of time gives us time to work on that. That's going back to the ambassador team. If they do outreach and they're talking to this new member and the new member says, "Well, I haven't had time to really utilize my membership yet." People so often equate value or chamber membership with attendance at things. We've got time then to start intervening to enforce a here's some cool things you can come to if you want to come to things, but here's value that you're getting from the chamber even if you never come to an event, right? So, we're looking for some of those behaviors ahead of time while we still have time to counteract that before it's renewal season.

Ted Wind: Very smart. And I think it's that prioritization with member focus and then also the ambassador program we talked about which increases the size, scale and reach of your small chamber staff that has allowed you guys I think to you know really take some really big swings as well. You guys won the trophy in Philadelphia obviously for the chamber of the year, but also you run a community impact day that has over 4,000 volunteers career center that's engaged over a thousand students in under a year. How does a small chamber shop pull off some of these really large-scale programs?

Jodi Owczarski: Yeah, great question. Community Impact Day actually started out of our leadership program. It's become my literal favorite day of the year. You can cancel Christmas. You can take away my birthday. If I could just do community impact day every year, I would be thrilled.

Our leadership program has been going on since 1988. Many, many chambers operate a very similar program. I was just looking for a way for us to wrap up the program year with something tangible. And so I decided to take the leadership class out that they could each invite somebody who was important to them and let's just go out and volunteer for an afternoon right on the last day of the program class.

And we did that and it was awesome and we had a great time. And we thought, man, we could do this bigger. And so the next year we did it again and said, okay, why don't you invite 10 friends to do this and we'll impact some more organizations. And once we did that, I realized there was something so much greater here.

And so we started reaching out to all of our nonprofits and then nonprofits that aren't chamber members plus municipalities and said, "What are those projects that you would wish that you could do that you just don't have the bandwidth for? I'll send you the people. You provide the tools and resources and we'll knock it out for you this afternoon." And boy, nonprofits and the municipalities really responded in our community.

The challenge is not to find enough volunteers. It's to find enough projects because people want to go out and serve, especially our young professionals. When their employer allows them during a workday to go out and volunteer and make an impact, their connection to their employer multiplies. And so, it's just been a winwin for us.

So, in that process, we created a core process, right? that journey of what it looks like to put on community impact day. We documented it well and then we shared it with other chambers and said, "Man, this has been awesome for us." I think we it generates $60,000 in revenue that afternoon. Our sponsors really get very little if anything out of it. They just want to be a part of the day. And so it's great revenue to the chamber, but even better, it's friend building.

And so we created this repeatable process. We shared it with other chambers neighboring us. And then we shared it with chambers across Michigan. Now we've shared it with chambers across the country. And it's seems like it's really taken off. So I'd welcome anyone to join us. We've got the cookbook. we're happy to share that would give you every step-by-step process, email document that you would need to implement this in your community.

Ted Wind: I love that and I love what you said about young professionals getting involved with volunteering events like this. Something I hear all the time with YPs is just a lot of times they don't even know what the chamber is. there's a lack of visibility there and major events like this that are engaging those young professionals, they probably don't know what the chamber is when they step into them, but afterwards they certainly do. And I think that's so incredible the way you're able to promote not just a good cause, but also visibility for the chamber, especially with, you know, some of these harder to reach demographics, right?

Jodi Owczarski: Yep. Yep. It's a win-win from that perspective. And I tell you what, the nonprofits we serve benefit so much more than the three hours of service we do that afternoon and the projects we complete. They end up with longtime fans of their organizations. They convert them to donors. They convert them to longer-term volunteers and sometimes even board members out of this process. So the reciprocal or residual impact from that is palpable

Ted Wind: 100%. And I think that's a great segue into one of our last questions we like to ask guests. We kind of want to bring it back to some tactical things first step a chamber leader listening can do for that chamber leader that we talked about a little bit earlier with the two or three staff on board. They don't have any awards on the shelf. They got the to-do list that just never ends. Where does this start? What's that very first move they should be looking at?

Jodi Owczarski: Yeah, I think the very first thing is get clarity on who you are and what you want to accomplish as an organization. Document it. Make sure that your whole team, maybe it's just you. Maybe it's, you know, you and two other people, but make sure you are all on the same page. Make sure your board is on the same page of what success looks like and where it is that you're going. And then when you've got that clarity, stick to it. Don't try to be all things to all people, but have that clarity of focus to really drive that impact forward. You don't have to be all things to all people, but be the best that you can be in those core pieces of your mission, your vision, and your values.

Ted Wind: I love that. And last question on the show, every guest gets this one. You know what's coming. One piece of advice you'd give to the other chamber leaders at home that are listening in today.

Jodi Owczarski: Be a trailblazer. You can't continue to do what you've always done. You've got to continue to look for ways that your community, your members need you to show up. And it's going to be new things. And it's going to be things that you've never done before and maybe no chamber has done before. Maybe no organization in your community has done before, but it's what your community needs. Be bold. Take the step. Go blaze a trail. and the impact that you're going to be able to create is going to be monumental.

Ted Wind: I love that, Jodi. Really, really well put. Don't be afraid to trailblaze. I just want to say thank you again for coming on the show today. I mean, honestly, everything we talked about here is a real testament to why you guys won chamber of the year. And there was so much good knowledge, insights, and things that listeners at home can steal for their chambers from this episode.

We also, as always, attach links to Jodi and the Michigan West Coast Chamber's socials, website, etc. in the description below. Don't be afraid to check those out. See some of these programs that they're doing. And as Jodi said, right, like, you know, reach out. What are some of the the emails, the programs, the things that you can take back because that's how we as chambers help each other and can innovate broader in the space.

Jodi Owczarski: Absolutely. We have a hidden page on our website that has some of our resources we've created for other chambers. I can share that with you, Ted. I don't know if it's possible to share that here. Otherwise, reach out. I'll share whatever I've got with anybody because I think when we succeed as a chamber, when you succeed as a chamber, we're all better for it.

Ted Wind: 100%. Jodi, thank you so much again for everyone listening. Thank you for tuning in to Beyond the Ribbon Cut. We'll catch you on the next one.